The Lark
Julie Daley’s performance as Joan of Arc is reason enough to see Eclipse Theatre Company’s production of The Lark, adapted by Lillian Hellman from a verse play by Jean Anouilh. Daley is marvelous: down-to-earth, straightforward, and natural yet utterly persuasive in a part that requires the audience to accept the spiritual and supernatural. Daley leaves no doubt that Joan’s voices connect her to God but also no doubt of her humanity. She even looks perfect, simultaneously sturdy and fragile, as she must be to play “the Maid,” “this child,” “this little girl” who somehow led the French to victory in battle.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Sadly, the production overall is not as fine as these performances. Though the plot is perfectly clear, it’s not at all apparent what point this oft-told story is meant to make. Part of the problem seems to be the play itself, which has a lot of fingerprints on it. Anouilh wrote it in 1953; then Christopher Fry adapted it for the London stage, where it received lukewarm reviews. Hellman’s readaptation for the play’s New York opening in late 1955 (with Julie Harris as Joan and Boris Karloff as Cauchon) was well received. The play also has multiple time signatures. Though its action is set in the 15th century, the prologue takes place right after World War I, and it was originally written in France after the Second World War and adapted in this country at the height of the cold war. The Lark is less a play than a competition among ideas from each of these people and periods.
That’s Anouilh’s play. Hellman’s, on the other hand, features a worldly Joan who gets the horse and army she wants by telling men they’re handsome and intelligent. More important, it features a Joan badgered by questioners willfully misinterpreting everything she says for the purpose, as Warwick roars, of “getting to the burning.” This Joan seems to be appearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee, saying, “I have told you over and over and over again…” and “What I am, I will not denounce; what I have done, I will not deny.” This subtext may explain why the play’s structure feels so familiar. Under enormous pressure, Joan recants, but at the last minute she revokes her recantation and goes to the stake. Two seasons before, Arthur Miller in The Crucible–also commenting on the HUAC hearings–had John Proctor make a confession, revoke it at the last minute, and go to the gallows. (Hellman also has Joan observe that the secret to courage is to “act as if you’re not afraid,” a sentiment apparently cribbed from the 1951 Broadway hit The King and I.)
